sasazuka - 2018-01-08 I kind of want to get one of those vintage record-playing Volkswagen T2 buses, but for shelf display only.

Is Techmoan taking a break from doing the puppet skits at the end? I know he doesn't do them for every video, especially not shorter ones, but I think it's been a month or so since he last did a puppet skit.

sasazuka - 2018-01-08 Never mind, Techmoan did a puppet bonus on the "Yi 360 VR vs Ricoh Theta V - 360º Cameras Head to Head" video posted just before Christmas.

Old_Zircon - 2018-01-10 I love that literally the only appeal of these devices is that they're a little van and this product eliminates that feature.

It's kind of like the Juicero if the only Juicero packets available were water.

Old_Zircon - 2018-01-10 Also it looks like you have to have it on the record to turn it on? Even the old ones had a little reed switch so it could tell when it was sitting on the record and start automatically, I'm pretty sure (last time I used one was like 2002). This one you basically have to mach the stylus against the record while you fumble with that stupid antenna. That's going to work out well.

Killer Joe - 2018-01-09 The comments on the kickstarter page are all pretty much this, with the moderator (I guess?) frantically telling people they'd sent a private message. Darkest dungeon is pretty damn good, tho.

SolRo - 2018-01-09 I don't think it's another juicero, in the sense that juicero was an overpriced original stupid idea, whereas this is just a rip off of someone else's idea with Bluetooth added.

Old_Zircon - 2018-01-10 Yeah, these have been around since, what, the early 70s at least? Maybe longer. A friend of mine had one back in the late 90s, the wheels fucked up your records.

If this one uses a laser that's even worse, because the whole reason laser turntables failed is that they would only work right with pristine maintained, immaculately dust free records, and any significant play wear or dust (you know, the dust that's already on most records when you first open them because even shrinkwrapped they're collecting bits of paper left over from the sleeve manufacturing process) makes them go completely haywire.

This may actually be worse than the Juicero from a technical standpoint.

Old_Zircon - 2018-01-10 Oooh, also notice that the foam that holds it i the box appears to have been laser cut and then glued together very sloppily with contact cement. When he opens it up you can see that there are smears of contact cement on it.

I'm seriously wondering if this even had any custom manufacturing involved at all. It wouldn't take much to buy some of the old-style record vans cheap on AliBaba or something, dremel off the outer casing, cut a hole for the USB and hack in the battery and Bluetooth. I bet even if you paid some teenagers to help (or better yet got them to do it for free as an "educational experience" or something) you'd still turn at least $75 profit per RokBlok based on the number of backers who got them and the amount raised.

Old_Zircon - 2018-01-10 (Yes I'm aware they didn't actually do that but it's basically the same thing; they had the factory that was already making these things do some OEM work for them, and then stuck it in a cheap laser cut box and in to a poorly assembled package. Which would be OK if this thing was $15 like it should be.

I wonder does the wood box provide any benefit (other than look trendy) I'd say its adds a significant amount to the weight and cost.

SolRo - 2018-01-09 doubt it adds weight, as wood is very light by volume.

it's probably for audiophile cred. audiophiles love overpriced wooden audio shit. I think there was a story a while back about audiophile wooden blocks costing hundreds of dollars. Said wooden blocks went under speakers or amps or something to (audiophile verb) the (audiophile noun).

Old_Zircon - 2018-01-10 Audiophiles are the last people who would have any interest in this, believe me.

LAser cut wood or acrylic is trendy because it's really cheap to manufacture in small runs (no custom tooling or anything needed) so it became common with DIY projects and small-volume cottage industry products and sometimes people spin that in to "exclusivity" or whatever for the rubes but in this case I'm pretty sure it's just because they spent their funding having whatever Southeast Asian factory makes the existing record vans do a run of them with a rechargeable battery and Bluetooth transmitter stuck on, and then housed them in the cheapest enclosures they could get.

But yeah, they probably chose wood instead of acrylic because wood is considered "better" by people who don't know what they're talking about (meanwhile a lot fo the best classic speakers used MDF back in the day even though it was much more expensive than wood, because it's more acoustically inert and therefore better for making speakers).

Incidentally, I read somewhere about 15 years ago that Thurston Moore paid over $1000 for a little wooden puck that sits on top of his records to make them sound better when he's listening. Pretty much cemented my existing opinions regarding Thurston Moore and Sonic Youth in general. Also, the stick record store joke was "Thurston started a label to sell overpriced records by unknown bands he doesn't like so he could raise money to buy rare old 60s and 70s obscurities that he actually listens to" and they might have had a point.

Old_Zircon - 2018-01-10 Laser part was in response to Chicken Did's post below, and also before I watched the video and saw this really is just a standard record van stuck in a wooden box with Bluetooth and rechargeable battery.

Chicken the Did - 2018-01-10 So couldn't you at least in theory take a laser mouse diode and make something that isn't shit with a vaguely similar design?

Old_Zircon - 2018-01-10 Sort of, they tried that in the 80s and supposedly it sounded very good but you pretty much had to keep your records in a clean room from the moment they came out of the press if you wanted it to work at all reliably.

It could probably be improved now with the state of microprocessors etc, but the amount of research and development to make something probably 25 people in the world would actually buy makes it unlikely at best.

dairyqueenlatifah - 2018-01-10 The comments on the Kickstarter page are very telling. I read through a few pages of them and not one was positive. They all range from "Thanks for trying, but I'm pretty disappointed" to "THIS IS IRREDEEMABLE GARBAGE I WANT MY MONEY BACK!"

Mr. Purple Cat Esq. - 2018-01-10 Pretty great result for a kickstarter afaik tho.
* Wasnt just a straight up scam.
* Actually built what they said they would.
* Actually sent them to backers.

and the clincher...

* Near to the promised timeframe.

dairyqueenlatifah - 2018-01-10 True, true. I've got to give credit where credit is due. They may have built a shoddy, dollar-store quality electronic, but they did actually make the thing, send it to the people who paid, and did it only slightly later than the originally announced date. That's way better than the overwhelming majority of Kickstarter projects go.